Council may vote, again, on business park project

BENICIA -- Call it the phoenix continually striving to rise from the ashes.

Developers for a Benicia business park and the residents who would need to live with the finished product, however, have very different ideas about which version of that phoenix should rise.

The controversial project, targeted for 528 acres of undeveloped northeast Benicia, received a double body punch in recent months as City Council members refused to give the project and its environmental study addendum enough votes to pass. More recently, the council formally voted down the project on Nov. 18. That vote came with a strong message to the developer: Come back with a new project with modern and environmentally conscious industrial, commercial and retail features.

So when Discovery Builders founder Albert Seeno III showed up at Councilman Mike Ioakimedes' restaurant door last week, his last minute plea came as a surprise. Seeno's family has owned the property, now in its third project incarnation since the early 1980s, hence the origin of the plan's

nickname, "the Seeno project."

Ioakimedes voted with the 4 to 1 majority to reject the plan. Thus, by city rules, he can also seek reconsideration of the Nov. 18 vote at Tuesday's meeting. And Ioakimedes said that's exactly what he plans to do.

"I said to (Seeno), 'I think our community needs a project and you own the land where we need to do it,' " Ioakimedes said. "He said, 'We're ready to do what we need to do.' "

Ioakimedes said he compiled a list of conditions that the developer would have to accept before he would even consider resurrecting the project.

Seeno wrote Ioakimedes that he would release the city from any project timelines -- up to a year -- and negotiate ground rules for the development, its environmental impact and its compliance with existing city vision. He said he also would fund a community group that would oversee the project and develop a business recruitment program.

Ioakimedes said many of Seeno's agreements stemmed from community comments and represented "more of a philosophical change" than big-cost concessions.

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, who has led the charge for a fresh project start, said she has problems with Seeno's proposal.

First, she said, the company has not built up enough trust with the community to be given a free pass. Second, she said, the developer circumvented the mayor by going to Ioakimedes instead of her, thereby continuing "to show disrespect for the city."

"When it takes so much effort to get this type of agreement, then you have to question each and every word of the agreement," Patterson said.

Patterson said she also pointed out a few "fatal flaws" in Seeno's proposal, which he had time to address but chose not to, she said.

Ioakimedes said even if his motion for reconsideration passes, the council likely will still need a workshop discussion before progress can be made.

"We've made mistakes, but if we learn from those mistakes I think clearly it's a good thing," Ioakimedes said. "If